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Rudy Guns Interview

DoIndie has some signed CD’s and gig tickets fromRudy Guns to give away. For more details on how to win this prize, please go to our facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/doindie.kr).

For anyone who's been paying attention, Korea has a robust ska scene these days. Rudy Guns may not be the first band you think of yet, as they are still a young band that hasn't yet released any albums (but get back to me in a week on that). But they are an excellent band that has been working in the trenches of the Korean underground music scene for two years. Their music is infectious and energetic and memorable, even if you've been pounding free cocktails all night. We interviewed Indeok Yun, the guitarist and vocalist of Rudy Guns, to hear more about the band's history, its relationship with the scene, and its future plans.

How did you make the name Rudy Guns and why did you choose it? Does it have a special meaning?

InDeok Yun : In summer 2012, I made this band with Young-Min Kim (ex-Skasucks drummer). In Rudy Guns, Gun means weapon. Gun is the weapon which can threaten people. Tremendously speaking, we are the guns without bullets. The fans are our bullets and we hope that they can achieve what they want through our music. It doesn't matter what things are -- revolution, freedom, relief, love, any other things. Rudy means rude boy, which was chosen by Young-Min.

I found videos online from December 2012 of Rudy Guns performing at the Japan/Korea Punk Festival. What was it like to play there?

InDeok Yun : I have been to Japan four times. Japan is the place that makes me feel excited and gigs in Japan are always fun. The most interesting point is communication. We can't communicate with engineers and audiences with language. But they can understand us with gestures and our music. And we rely on each other when we are abroad. Also, it is very exciting to hang out with our Japanese punk friends. It is always inspring for me to talk to them with a different cultural background, especially like Yuto (from 00Squad) who has respect for Korean culture. For that reason, I'm inclined to take care of Japanese friends when they visit Korea.

Has the band changed a lot since you formed?

InDeok Yun : At first, we consisted of four members (Indeok, Jae-woong, Young-min and Hoomin(guitarist/vocalist of The Woozy now). And then, Young-min quit because of private issues so Dave joined as our drummer. After a while, Hoomin quit because he wanted to make his own band The Woozy. So Seung-Woo Hong played guitar for two months but he had to quit because of military service. And I wanted to make our sound more rich, so I invited Nagi for organ. Finally, in February 2013, we has formed this set (Indeok, Ki-chul, Nagi, Jae-Woong, Dave). We never had problems with ex-members and I think this is our strong point.

When I interviewed Skasucks, Jinseok said he doesn't consider his band to be ska-punk, but more a mix of many genres. What about Rudy Guns' genre? Do you clearly define it as ska-punk, or do you prefer not to be labelled?

InDeok Yun : We don't know well about ska or punk rock music. Someone says they are a ska-punk band, others say they are a pop-punk band or other say they are just a punk band. It doesn't matter at all to us. We are just Rudy Guns. But we can definitely say that we are not a hardcore, metal or blues band. We are gonna suggest many different kinds of music of our own. And our ultimate goal is making people recognize our music as soon as they listen to it without any information. We wanna color our music with our own color.

How would you describe the relationship between Rudy Guns and Skasucks? What is the relationship a younger band has with an older band in Korea?

InDeok Yun : I think Skasucks is the best ska-punk band in Korea. I really love their music and performances. I really appreciate them taking care of us. Actually there are not many bands who can mix ska and punk music. In this situation, we came out and do our best so they pay attention to us. Especially Jinsuk and I have many things in common. So Jinsuk's Suck Tattoo and my crew The Valiant share the same office without any problem. Jinsuk always make constant efforts for anything. I really like that sort of people so I am always ready to support him (of course, he always makes awesome projects). I think many young bands still don't make close relationships with older bands. I think older bands will pay attention to them when they show the older bands that they do their best like us. For example, we felt a huge synergy effect when Crying Nut helped us with the 응답하라 조선펑크 gig (editor: a March 29 show with Green Flame Boys, Plastic Heart, Rudy Guns, the Veggers, Dead Buttons, Yello Loko, and Crying Nut themselves, all for 5000 won at Club Spot). Actually it is not easy for younger bands to contact older bands by themselves. So I want them to do that more easily through The Valiant.

What is your perspective of the relationship between punk and ska? How do they fit together so closely?

InDeok Yun : This is Korea's unique culture. In other countries, so many different musicians have their own scenes and hardly interact with each other. But there are no walls like them here. Hardcore, punk, skinhead musicians are all on good terms. Actually It is too small a scene to divide into genres like them. On the other hand, this could be evidence that the Korean band scene has not settled down yet. If there are so many bands in each genre, all people couldn't be friends like nowadays because it would be fun to play among the same scene.

One of the things I find most interesting about Rudy Guns is how all of the members seem to have very different clashing appearances. Is there a lot of clashing in everyone's musical inspirations as well? How is this diversity brought together into one coherent band?

InDeok Yun : The members have lived for almost 20 years apart. So it is almost impossible to find members who are perfectly the same as my musical taste. But I was so lucky to find people like our members. Of course, each member is influenced by different music, so we don't touch other member's part. Sometimes we can fix the song a little according to the songwriter's intention, but Rudy Guns' strongest point is our mutual understanding. We all love alcohol and punk rock. I think it is enough to maintain our band.

Rudy Guns also has a really well-designed logo, usually hanging from the keyboard, which helps make your band more recogniseable. What is the story behind that?

InDeok Yun : Hyeong-Woo Lee made this logo. He is the co-promoter of the Hell Rise Show with Jong-Hee Won of Rux. We didn't have our own logo so he made our logo for the flyer. We didn't discuss it with him but we really liked it. So we decided to use that design for our main logo. I want to thank him again for making this awesome logo.

What are the future plans for Rudy Guns?

InDeok Yun : First, on July 26 we are gonna release our first EP album "Let's RGS" and have an EP album release show with our crew The Valiant members (The Veggers, Green Flame Boys, Resolute, Return Bo!s, Plastic Heart). After that, we're gonna participate in the New Generation Of Ska vol.10 on August 30. We are really excited to be there with our sincere Japanese friends, Rollings and Autocratics. And the Bruce Lee Band will come and perform with us!! It really makes me excited. This festival is the international music festival we made by ourselves without any capital strength of enterprise. And I know the procedure to make it so I congratulate the TNGOSKA team all of my heart. Finally. We are going to start recording our first full-length album as soon as we release our first EP and have some plans for both domestic and Japan tours.

DoIndie has some signed CD’s and gig tickets fromRudy Guns to give away. For more details on how to win this prize, please go to our facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/doindie.kr).

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